Twitter has become even more of a dumpster fire since Elon Musk took ownership of it last year. Australia’s eSafety commissioner herself, Julie Inman Grant, has labelled the site a “bin fire” in issuing a legal notice to the company.
The commissioner says that Twitter has “dropped the ball” on tackling online hate and issues a legal notice to Twitter demanding an explanation about what it is doing to combat the increase in online hate.
Over the past year there have been more complaints about online hate on Twitter than any other platform with these complaints spiking since self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist” Elon Musk took over the company.
“We are seeing a worrying surge in hate online,” Inman Grant said. “Twitter appears to have dropped the ball on tackling hate. A third of all complaints about online hate reported to us are now happening on Twitter”
“We are also aware of reports that the reinstatement of some of these previously banned accounts has emboldened extreme polarisers, peddlers of outrage and hate, including neo-Nazis both in Australia and overseas,” Inman Grant said.
Research by eSafety has shown that nearly one in five Australians had experienced some form of online hate and one third of all complaints about online hate reported are about Twitter. Although Twitter’s policies prohibit hateful conduct the rise in complaints suggests that Twitter is not enforcing their own policies.
“If you’re a First Nations Australian, you are disabled or identify as LGBTIQ+ you experience online hate at double the rest of the population,” Inman Grant said
Twitter is not the first to receive such notices with Meta and other platforms also receiving them alongside Twitter in August last year and again in February asking the companies to explain how they dealt with online child abuse on their websites. Twitter responded to that notice, but it has not been made known whether that response was acceptable.
Twitter has 28 days to respond to the new eSafety request otherwise it could face maximum penalties of nearly $700,000 per day for continuing breaches.
“We need accountability from these platforms and action to protect their users and you cannot have accountability without transparency and that’s what legal notices like this one are designed to achieve,” Ms Inman Grant said.
eSafety encourages all individuals who feel they have been the target of online abuse to report to the platform and, if the platform fails to act, to report to eSafety at www.esafety.gov.au/report.
